The stars of a really big show
My television is bigger than your television.
Oh yeah? Mine is high-definition, wireless, plays MP3 music, shows photos, accesses the Internet, receives satellite radio, has a built-in printer and feeds the baby. Well, maybe not that last thing, but we’re working on it for ’05.
This was the spirit of the prodigious Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last weekend, where thousands of manufacturers from all over the world came to show their latest in digital gadgetry, in various sizes, formats and combinations.
Bragging rights often beat out practicality -- outside the convention center hung a building-length banner proclaiming that LG Electronics was showing the “world’s first” 76-inch plasma TV. But just a few booths away from LG on the convention floor, Samsung Electronics had an 80-inch plasma on display.
Neither would mean much to an actual consumer, unless that consumer had a living room the size of the one built by Bill Gates.
But amid all the size claims and hoopla -- to attract attention to their booths, companies used dancers, singers, magicians, minor celebrities and even a guy whose act was to get out of a straitjacket while riding a unicycle -- there were some true consumer gems to be found.
Here are 10 of the coolest finds at the convention.
TV, unplugged
This television with a 12-inch LCD screen is so lightweight you want to pick it up and carry it. Which is exactly the idea. The LocationFree from Sony is a battery-operated, wireless TV/ browser that can access whatever is plugged into its base station.
For example, if your cable line was in the base station, you could wander around the house with the screen (within an approximately 100-foot radius), viewing shows and changing channels as if you were in the living room. With your broadband Internet service also plugged into the station, you could read e-mail or browse the Web.
But the unit really gets amazing when used from a remote location via the Internet. Say you were in a hotel in Rome equipped for online wireless service. You could, via the hotel’s wireless Internet connection, hook up with your home station to allow you to see your own cable channels. And if someone plugged a camcorder into the base station back home, you could see live video of your kid’s birthday party.
The product is supposed to be available in the fall. Sony executives would not discuss price.
Mighty Mouse
Think of the Zen Portable Media Center as an MP3 player that is so sophisticated it also can play high-quality video. Measuring only about 6 inches by 3 inches and weighing a little more than 11 ounces, this device can store approximately 80 hours of video, including television shows you’ve recorded or movies transferred from DVDs.
The bright screen far sharper than on the hand-held TVs now available can play back the video for comfortable viewing while traveling, out in the backyard or in a coffee shop where you’re bound to attract a lot of attention.
The Zen player, due out later this year from Creative Technology at a price between $500 and $600, also can store thousands of songs or tens of thousands of photos.
The big disadvantage is that its full potential is realized only when used in conjunction with a computer equipped with the latest Windows Media Player format.
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Quiet time
Headsets certainly make mobile phone use in a car a lot more pleasant (though not safer, according to one study). But most headsets are uncomfortable to wear, tricky to operate and/or have bad sound quality.
The QuietSpot is lightweight, stays comfortably in the ear and has sophisticated noise-canceling qualities to provide good sound for the caller and callee. Even though I was standing in the midst of a loud surround-sound setup playing a Dixie Chicks concert at the convention, a friend I called could hear me just fine, and vice versa. Very impressive, although QuietSpot has its limits when I placed a call from the bone-vibrating car-audio demonstration area, a friend could barely hear me.
Still, QuietSpot from the Shure Corp. is the best headset I’ve used with a cellphone. Available now for about $50.
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Smooth pictures
I have not been overwhelmed by HDTV, but sets with the new xHD3 chip technology from Texas Instruments are a knockout. They produce images in the 1080p format, which is the highest level of resolution in HDTV. But the sets also use a new regimen to smooth out the picture, making it almost impossible to see individual pixels.
The result is a picture as smooth as glass. A drawback for flat-panel fans is that these sets use digital light processing projection, which requires a bit of depth. The 61-inch model on display was about 17 inches deep.
Samsung will be one of the first companies bringing out an xHD3 set later this year, according to Texas Instruments officials. Prices were not released.
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Run with this
GPS technology is being put to ever more practical uses. The Garmin Forerunner 201, a three-inch-wide device worn around the wrist, tells runners their speed, distance and pace as determined by satellite tracking.
Best of all, before a run you can input a pace goal and a little animated stick figure on the device will move along at that rate. A second animated runner, right under that, will show if you are moving at a rate ahead, behind or right on target.
The device also tracks your route, allowing you to retrace it to get back home. Now available, it sells for about $125.
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A happy marriage
If you have a bunch of videocassettes that you want to convert to DVDs, a new type of machine from both Panasonic and Samsung should make it a snap. It’s a DVD recorder and videocassette player all in one.
You stick a tape into the VHS side and a blank DVD into the other, and the video should simply port over.
Prices aren’t final yet, but the machines will cost about $550. They are due out this spring.
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Your own station
Digital home weather stations have been around for several years, but a new line from Oregon Scientific is a lot more stylish than what has been available. Designed by Philippe Starck, these display panels with bold graphics will be available in February in red, yellow and gray.
The smallest model shows the time (as set by the official national atomic clock signal) and a barometric pressure indicator that gives a crude forecast for the next 12 to 24 hours. The medium and large models add indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity readings. All three sizes can be used as alarm clocks. Prices will range from $100 to $300.
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War on wires
If there was a trend in home-theater sound at the convention, it was rear surround speakers that eliminated the wires connecting them to the main units. Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung and Sony all had units on display using a variety of mostly wireless technologies, including Bluetooth and infrared.
All seemed to work well, at least on the show floor. They don’t, however, completely do away with wires you still need to hook the speakers into a little receiver that catches the rear sound signal.
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1 remote, not 4
For years there has been a quest for an all-purpose remote to combine all the remotes in the house into one. Often, this just leads to having yet another remote.
But the Harmony Universal Remote from Intrigue Technologies tries a different tactic. You hook it into your home computer, type in the model numbers of your various televisions, DVD players, and so on, and it gets the information on them from a vast database via the Internet.
The company’s latest and most-sophisticated model, the SST-688, will be available later this year for about $230.
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Just like the pros
When it comes to video cameras, the more chips the better, but also the higher the cost. Feature films have been shot using three-chip (3CCD) cameras, but they generally cost in the thousands. Now, Panasonic is bringing out a sub-$1,000 3CCD camcorder aimed at the home market.
The PV-GS120 might not have as sophisticated a lens setup as professional video cameras, but it will bring 3CCD technology to the enthusiastic amateur for about $700. The camcorder is scheduled to be available in the spring.
